


darkest matter

by cloudsovercalifornia



Category: Metalocalypse, Rick and Morty
Genre: Crossover, Gen, dethrick mortyklok, emotionally stunted manchildren, heard you like adult swim, speech tics galore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-22 18:17:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12487904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudsovercalifornia/pseuds/cloudsovercalifornia
Summary: Toki Wartooth is missing, and no one can find him… no one except for an alcoholic scientist and his world-weary grandson. In which science is brutal and the Dethklok boys contend with feelings. Gen.





	1. space slice

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn’t find it, so i wrote it. enjoy

Skwisgaar Skwigelf is a guitar god, which is to say he has zero flaws. If he did have a single weakness - which he does not - it would be Toki Wartooth. After the _norsk_ was kidnapped, it is possible that Skwisgaar perhaps spent countless nights awake in bed wondering how the abductors were torturing him. Force-feeding him candy to keep him in a constant diabetic coma? Murdering cats in front of his face? Supergluing headphones to his ears and slowly killing him with Christian metalcore? Sweet Lucifer, how these things haunted him… hypothetically speaking. If only he had some control over the situation. Nathan had gone on three unsuccessful solo missions so far. It was understandable that he would look for Toki - this was his responsibility as the frontman. But Skwisgaar could do no such thing. Admitting that he missed Toki would be admitting that the inferior guitarist was necessary. Admitting that the inferior guitarist was necessary would be admitting that he enjoyed his company. And Skwisgaar Skwigelf does not enjoy the company of other men, because that would be Gay, and he is definitely Not Gay. Besides, no one who has as much heterosexual sex as he does should ever be suspected of such.

These days, each of the bandmembers spends his time holed up in his own remote corner of the castle. They don’t talk about the Toki-void at Mordhaus because they are metal gods, and everyone knows metal gods don’t have _feelings._ The fact that they have each taken up therapeutic hobbies is unrelated. Murderface has been filling up the house with rare Funko pop figures. Pickles’s authentic wormwood absinthe phase has returned. Nathan has a stack of John Green novels hidden under his bed. As for the resident Swede, he made an alphabetized list of Possible Kinks and has been crossing off each entry with whatever woman or inanimate object is willing.

Skwisgaar almost doesn’t believe it that morning when the three other guys join him in the dethtub like old times. The water is heated to a balmy 66.6 degrees Celsius, which they collectively agreed was the only acceptable temperature for a hot tub.

Nathan clears his throat. “So, uh. Anyone want to read anonymous hate comments from their phone?”

Pickles and Murderface grumble in the negative. Skwisgaar doesn’t react, just stares down at the cigarette butt swirling in the center of the tub. A memory, unbidden, floats to the surface of his mind.

_“What are you reading, Toki?” Pickles takes a swig of his beer, and some of it spills down the side of his mouth. The hot tub water is usually 1% beer whenever Pickles is involved._

_Toki, fixated on his phone screen, sticks his tongue out in concentration - it's not easy to read black text on a black background. “The internets hates. We ams just released a new albums last week, but people ams alreadys demandings another one. Like these peoples got music withdrawings.”_

_Skwisgaar snorts. “What a stupids thingk to do. Who cares what the masses ams thinks. Besides, yous about to drop your phones in the tub.”_

_“Ams not!” Toki cries, but Skwisgaar gives him a good kick to the shin, and the phone plunks into the water._

_“Ha ha. You killed your phones again. Now you have to goes back to Horizon Wiredless and gets new ones.”_

“What are you shmiling about?” Murderface says, jolting Skwisgaar out of his reverie.

“Nothings,” Skwisgaar snaps.

“Whatever. I gotta take a pish.” Murderface sloshes up and out of the tub.

Skwisgaar tries his best to casually shoot the shit with Nathan and Pickles. They are less than a minute into the conversation when a horrified scream echoes down the hallway. 

“It came from the toilet!” Murderface yells from around the corner. _“It came from the toilet!”_

Murderface is in view now, and he’s running toward them with his swim trunks around his ankles. Nathan covers Pickles’s and Skwisgaar’s eyes with his hands. 

“Mother of Euronymous, pull your shorts up!” he growls. 

Murderface complies, nearly tripping on his own feet in the process. No one has to ask why he’s fleeing. A huge, pulsating mass of inky blackness rounds the corner, hurtling in their direction. The screech emanating from its approximate mouth region can only be described as Satan’s dial-up modem.

Skwisgaar pushes Nathan’s hand aside. “What in fucks…”

Pickles reaches into the water and pulls out a series of pristinely kept weapons: one nail-studded baseball bat, one morningstar, one hatchet, and one crossbow. “I’m ready,” he says, standing up with the baseball bat. He tosses the morningstar to Nathan and the hatchet to Murderface. 

When Skwisgaar refuses the crossbow, Pickles asks, “Don’t you want to satisfy your violent urges?” 

“No,” Skwisgaar repeats and sinks deeper into the water, sulking. Monster exterminating has always been Toki’s job alone. It is too soon to violate Toki’s right to first blood. Gods, does that rhythm guitarist enjoy channeling all of his childhood trauma into butchering the Mordhaus invaders...

Pickles shrugs and hops out of the tub to lead the attack. It’s… less brutal than he imagines. The three of them barely manage to land a scratch on the creature - if anything, they’re just pissing it off. 

“Why ishn’t thish working? It jusht deformsh itsh body around the blade!”

“Yeah, it’s like it’s from another dimension or something,” Nathan agrees.

Just then, a man-sized doorway of green light materializes in the air. From this portal emerge an old man and a teenage boy.

“Whoa there! Easy on my puppy,” the old man says. Judging by his white lab coat and aura of disgust for humanity, he’s a scientist. 

Skwisgaar sits up in the hot tub. Nathan blinks at the grandpa and says, “I don’t know who you are or how you got here, but that’s not a puppy.”

Science Grandpa sigh-burps. “It was, until one of you *erp* geniuses urinated on its face. This thing is a poxlik from the planet of Nubum, and-and it goes from playful dog to world-destroyer the second you expose it to urea.” He removes a glass vial from his pocket and dispenses a single drop of liquid onto the poxlik. The beast warps and shrinks down to the size of a formless chihuahua, and the man attaches a high-tech leash to it.

“Poxlik, huh,” Pickles echoes. The small creature is kind of cute now, the way it’s quietly hover-sitting. 

“It’s Nubumian for ‘dark hound’,” the boy chimes in. Judging by the dark circles under his eyes and the stains on his rumpled yellow shirt, he could really use a vacation and a stable father figure in his life. 

“What wash it doing in _our home?”_ Murderface gestures with the hatchet.

“Poxliks are interdimensional jumpers, and they’re attracted to anything that’s really, really *belch* dark,” Science Grandpa explains. “Once they reach sexual maturity, th-they search universes for darkness to feed on until they have stockpiled enough energy to mate and l-lay eggs. Their current spawning territory happens to coincide with our destination. I-I was following this little sheila to the Black Market, but I didn’t anticipate she’d take a detour to this… place.” He glances around disparagingly. 

Nathan’s morningstar clangs to the floor, leaving a spiky dent. “Did you say _black market?”_

“Yeah, i-it’s a physical marketplace,” Science Grandpa answers, unibrow flattened in boredom. “Well-hidden, of course. They change the location at-at random intervals. I used to be on the mailing list until six months ago when _my grandson_ got us shadowbanned.” He glares at the boy, who splutters in protest. “Anyway, we’d better get going now. The Cheezmodrome closes at 2200 local time, and Morty and I were dying to pop down for a space slice.”

“Wait!” Nathan reaches into the pocket of his swim trunks and pulls out a crisp, dry origami frog. No one bothers to ask why he was carrying this around. The papercraft is dwarfed by his big hands, but he unfolds it dexterously and hands it to the scientist. “Our friend- err, bandmate was abducted. This ransom note appeared in the mail shortly after. I spent a lot of time on the dark web because I didn't know what to make of _black market_."

"Dark Web's a real place too," Morty says helpfully.

Skwisgaar finally climbs out of the tub and points a pruny finger at Nathan. “Why comes you didn’t tells me about this?”

“You didn’t care. None of you did.” Nathan scowls harder than usual. “I mean, not that I care either. Just saying.”

Science Grandpa reads from the piece of paper: _“Tokey Warteeth an Abigail Remeltindtdrinc we hev. If yu want them retern blak markit go an ask THE FROG for.”_ He looks up when he’s finished. “I recognize this letter stroke style and syntactical pattern. T-this note was written by a native speaker of Wourton.” He pauses. “You guys could hitch a ride with us, i-if you want.”

“Aw geez, Rick, c-can we at least take a sidebar on this?” Morty pleads.

“Yeah, we’re gonna need a sidebar, too,” Pickles pipes up. 

Dethklok steps aside and begins whispering amongst themselves. 

“I don’t think we should go with them,” Pickles says to his bandmates. “The old guy’s head is way too oblong, and the circular-head kid is even weirder looking. I’m just saying, can we really trust them?”

“Yeah, theshe guysh are pretty ugly.”

“This might be our only shot at finding Toki,” Nathan replies. “Like, what are the chances of these space guys randomly showing up here and knowing stuff?”

“That’s exactly why it ams suspicksuous.”

Meanwhile, Morty interrogates Rick: “W-what are you doing coming to the rescue of these scary-ass strangers? You’re not the kind of guy who helps people out of-of the goodness of your own heart.”

Rick belches in agreement. “Right you are, Morty. W-we need to keep this poxlik fed until we get to the Black Market so that he doesn’t take us for another detour… a-and I don’t feel like stealing any dark matter kibble from MegaTesco.”

“I knew it,” Morty says. “I knew you were using these guys for personal gain. Well, i-if these guys turn out to be decent, I’m not letting you abandon them at the Black Market. And-and maybe I might even help them find their friend!”

“Whatever, Morty,” Rick grunts. 

“Sidebar over,” Nathan calls. “We’re taking you up on your offer. Just give us a moment to go get dressed.”

“Good,” Rick says. “Y-you've got five minutes. Morty and I be waiting here with Poxie.”


	2. complex plane

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dragging out the pace here because i am obsessed and would greatly enjoy being launched into space as capital punishment

Each of the four band members spends four minutes selecting from one of his forty identical outfits. Pickles is smug when Poxie chooses his company over everyone else’s, and he lets the small creature hover-ride on his shoulder. Rick and Morty lead them through a portal into a pitch black world: here, it's so dark that opening or closing their eyelids makes no difference. 

Skwisgaar waves his hand in front of his face and says, “This ams the Black Markets, then?”

“Nope. This is my portable parking space. Fits one sickity sick spaceship.” Rick presses a button on his keyfob, activating four pairs of extreme-intensity lights. The five other adventurers shield their eyes to prevent death by blinding.

“Meet my new baby, Sofia,” Rick explains. “A few rounds of-of casual illegal gambling bought me the parts with which I built her. Y-you won’t find another ship like this anywhere.”

Now that his eyes have semi-adjusted, Skwisgaar allows himself to admire the ship, whose shape reminds him of a tailless stingray. The design is sleek enough to be impressive, yet minimalist enough to avoid drawing attention to whatever illicit activities it may facilitate. Without further ado, the crew boards the ship. There are only two seats but a decent amount of room for the guests to walk around behind them. Rick slides into the pilot seat and shifts the ship out of the parking space and into proper space, en route to the Cheezmodrome.

“Hey, you said I could steer the ship this time,” Morty says.

“Change o-of plans. Go watch over those satanic hitchhikers and make sure they don't destroy everything. I want to live to taste another slice of heaven. After that, fuck it - I’m-I'm game for a gnarly death.” 

Rick shuts down any further whining from his Morty, and the scowling boy trudges away to do his job. Mortywork turns out to be essential: in the fifteen or so seconds he spent talking to Rick, the band has managed to start a small fire in the back of the ship. Morty extinguishes the flames without any fanfare, much to the dismay of his guests. After the excitement of semi-accidental arson wears off, the Dethklok gang crowds around the rear window to enjoy the scenery. Faced with the vast expanse of the cosmos, Skwisgaar is suddenly a much smaller deity. Even the IRoOaTD (Intergalactic River of Organic and Technological Debris - or “shitstream”, per Morty) running parallel to their route has its own stark kind of beauty. His fingers itch for his guitar - he thinks he can write at least two albums inspired by space.

Meanwhile, Nathan broods extra hard by the window. “I should have known that aliens had something to do with Toki’s capture,” he tells Skwisgaar. “Isn’t that what abduction means? Taken by aliens?”

“You ams asking the wrong persons about vocabsjularies. Besides you ams the one who’s always watching the Hitslery Channel.” The space fever must be getting to his head because he adds, “I shoulds have gone with you on the first missions.”

Nathan grunts as if to say, _I forgive you. We’ll find our brother and make it right, and hopefully he will forgive us, too,_ to which Skwisgaar nods in understanding. 

Pickles spots the threat at the same time Sofia does. “There’s someone following us.” He points out of the window at the rapidly approaching craft, and Sofia starts sounding an alarm. _“Enemy vibes detected,”_ repeats her robotic female voice.

 _“Pirates,”_ Rick spits as if it’s a curse word. “They’re here to download our shiny poxlik, and th-they’ll kill us if they have to.”

Morty’s eyeballs boggle. “Y-you said poxliks are relatively common organisms!”

“I lied, _obviously_. Th-they’re considered critically endangered, causing and because of an illegal demand. Poxie here would do very well on the Black Market.”

“No!” Pickles and Morty shout simultaneously.

Murderface starts to sweat. “The pirate ship ish fasht ash fuck. We’re not gonna outrun them.” 

“Hold onto your asses,” Rick says. Morty straps himself into the passenger seat. The band members don’t have anywhere to go, so they fall over like dominoes when Rick executes the first evasive maneuver.

“Electromagnetic stun waves.” Rick shakes his head and burps in disapproval. “Wh-what is this, 1999?”

Rick continues to zigzag and dive Sofia away from the pulse range. Dethklok has given up trying to stand and are now rolling around and collecting bruises like spilled apples in a grocery store. Murderface voices his urge to puke, and Skwisgaar and Nathan agree (but not Pickles - it takes a lot to make him vomit). The enemy ship abandons its stun tactic and escalates to lasers as death sentence. Rick dodges 99% of the strafe, but one hit grazes the tip of Sofia’s wing, and the awful noise gets drowned out by the damage alarm. Contrary to Rick’s vehement profanities, she’s only mildly injured.

“Aw geez, it-it’s like they don’t even care if they destroy us, Poxie and all,” worries Morty.

“Enough foreplay,” Rick says. “Let’s see if my beta mode feature delivers.” Rick enters a code into the dashboard. “Pew pew, motherfuckers!”

What happens next doesn’t look like a movie scene. There is no deafening KABOOM, no mushrooming fireballs - only the mercy of death in the silent vacuum of space. Sophia unlocks her stern equips to blast intersecting planes of silver light behind her; with surgical precision, they slice the enemy ship into progressively smaller chunks.

Constellations reflect in Skwisgaar’s eyes as he admires the carnage they leave behind. “Alcoholic grandpas just exkwinguished all life aboards that ship with no cares.”

“Science is brutal,” Pickles agrees.

The ever-humble scientist pipes up, “I’m kind of famous in the ship-modding community."

In that second, Skwisgaar catches a glimpse of a cleanly severed appendage floating away: a human arm with - he swears - a tattoo of a clock broken down the middle. But he blinks, and it’s gone, vanished into the void of the multiverse.

Nathan notices Morty’s tired demeanor. “You seem calm.”

“Shit like this happens every time we try to go to the Cheezmodrome.” Morty sighs. “They don’t call this neighborhood the ‘Baltimore of SCC 408’ for nothing.”

They resume their journey to the Cheezmodrome without further incident, but as they draw near, there’s a suspicious absence of other hungry commuters. Sure enough, the restaurant’s neon sign is dark. Rick parks outside of the station, just to be sure, but doesn’t leave the ship. A sign on the front door reads CLOSED FOR REMODELING.

Rick takes a moment to grieve, and his rambling speech about “Szechuan sauce” is completely lost on Skwisgaar. He grabs Poxie from Pickles’s shoulder and plonks her at the helm of command. “ _You_ get us to the Black Market. I need to go restore my BAC to baseline.” 

“Oh, so the _dog_ gets to be the pilot, while I have to be the babysitter,” Morty complains.

Rick ignores him and stalks away to visit his onboard femtobrewery. Morty can’t say anything when Poxie starts steering the ship without touching anything. She twitches the ship from dimension to dimension, effectively shortcutting them to the destination. Skwisgaar’s human eyes can’t keep up with the pace, so all he perceives is flashes of colors intermingled with black and white static. An indeterminable time later, Poxie warps the ship to a smooth stop.


End file.
